Live On Stage: The Ziegfeld Poems

August 20^th came more quickly than I could ever have imagined, and whether I was ready or not, the evening of my presentation at the Omega Institute arrived. I billed it as a sort of lecture/reading, which perhaps might have frightened people less. There is a built-in fear of poetry readings that, having been to a few myself, I can totally sympathize with. Somehow the word “lecture” doesn’t have the same effect, so I was able to sneak a few poems into the presentation with the pressure of having the poems be the center of attention. Except of course they were, to me at least.

The meeting space upstairs at the Ram Dass Library is simply elegant and round, and no mic was necessary. Luckily, because all the mics were being used by Bobby McFerrin for his “Circlesongs” workshop that week. My plans to play a CD of Follies tunes while the crowds moseyed in was thwarted by technical difficulties, as was the use of a remote slide changer. For this event, I put together my very first PowerPoint presentation, using photos of the “cast” to help listeners make the connection between the poems and the people involved. I’ve since purchased my own combination remote changer and laser pointer for future presentations for a mere $20, so my Handler will get the night off. For now, he did me the great good favor of looking for my cues, and advancing the photos smoothly.

It is sometimes difficult for me to explain what I know about the Follies without skipping parts. I have to keep reminding myself about how little most people remember about that time today, without being condescending or overly detailed. I interspersed short biographies with photos and poems, and tried to create a brief narrative that I hope hung together. I was spared the agony of being corrected by anyone who was more knowledgeable about the Follies than I am, because they’re out there. They just weren’t with me that night. I’m sure I made some factual errors, and certainly perpetuated one or two long-standing myths that I hope to put to rest in the future. I see where I need to fill in gaps, and where the poems themselves could use some fine tuning.

There were about a dozen people in attendance, and even a few that surprised me. Still others were merely participants interested in my project. I was grateful for all. It was very beneficial to hear the work out loud, and to see if it would play in Peoria. I believe it will. Now, back to the desk, the books, the research, to make this project the best possible I can, one-hundred years after the fact.

Submittables or Unsubmittables: Sending out Poems

Like some of you, I’m old enough to remember when submitting poems to magazines for possible publication meant hours of typing, proofreading, correcting (with fluid or ribbon) and retyping manuscripts. Even a few pages might only be good for one shot. After months (often many months), you’d receive your carefully produced pages returned to you in the Self-Addressed Stamp Envelope you’d included with your submission, and with luck the pages were even still in good enough condition to mail out at least once more.

There’d usually be some kind of note, either accepting one or more poems for future inclusion, or a graceful decline, full of form letter regret. Occasionally you’d receive no reply at all and continue to wonder for the rest of your life if your poems weren’t languishing at the bottom of some pile of undelivered mail, or a pile of discarded poems in the abandoned offices of a defunct periodical.

Nowadays, submitting poems to potential publishers has never been easier. There is email, for one. Some of the smaller magazines take email submissions, and often reply very quickly, sometimes in 24 hours! And the are online magazines, too. These have far more flexibility than the strictly ink & mortar variety, and can publish more work, making it available online indefinitely. Between just these two advances, I’ve been able to submit much more work with much more ease. I’ve concentrated this summer on getting my poems out. Much as I adore (more or less) each and every one, they must see the world. And perhaps the world will see them.

Submittables is a portal used by some publications to act as a go-between. It prevents viruses from being transmitted via email, and also allows them to charge contest or submission fees easily via PayPal. Partly as an experiment, my stepped-up efforts to submit more work included two basic elements: no fees, and no Submittables. Perhaps these are unfair limits. I know many zines struggle financially, and I try to purchase when I can, but years of reading such things has convinced me that the standard advice each gives of “take a look at the latest issue to get a feel for the kind of thing we like,” has little meaning. I prefer the bolder message of, “Please support us and subscribe.”

I’ve used Submittables in the past, and it is relatively easy. However, at this point in my life, with a full-time job for the next several millennia still a very real possibility, and the brutal heat that evaporated the Northeast for much of this summer, I wanted to make things as easy on myself as possible. It would take all of fifteen minutes to locate a zine, scope out their guidelines, and send my work. I have a standard bio, if one is required off the bat, and a collection of “poet” photos that make me look serious and professional. And I never try to do more than one in the same day. I’ve been very inspired lately by the likes of Rebecca Schumejda, John Dorsey, Dan Crocker, and perhaps unethically sent work to magazines that had published theirs.

So far, I’ve had six poems accepted, and one being held for a possible future anthology, and have submitted a couple dozen maybe overall. Not a bad return for my time and electric. I’m not so focused on contests at present, because I don’t like the odds and don’t feel a need for that kind of attention. That being said, the DiBiase award of 2017 was a total surprise and I am grateful. That was also a very easy contest to enter. I was proud to be among those poets and honored to be one of their judges this year. But it’s not about contests for me right now.  

In fact, I get tremendous pleasure out of printing up my own chapbooks. That will happen again. Maybe I’ll start my own online zine. It all depends on Lotto. 

Summer Sun & Shadows

I knew my promise of “weekly” updates would fall by the wayside sooner or later, but between you, me & the lamp post, I’m thinking I needed a break. The Universe just took it upon itself to impose that break upon me.

My day gig underwent its usual season changes, but with each service department short-staffed. The time between calls that I’d previously used to pound out a few notes for the blog evaporated, and exhaustion at the end of the day didn’t really allow me much energy to make up for it at home. Then July, whether because of global warning, natural Earth evolution, or other, was oppressively hot. We even broke down and bought a small air conditioner for the bedroom area, so that sleeping could occur.

All this limited my writing time substantially. However, the ongoing projects are never far from my fingertips. I’ve got a chapbook pending with Post Traumatic Press, a collaboration with my friend Guy Reed. Look for more about that this fall. For a few weeks there, I was chucking three poems a day out to various small zines, only the ones that made the process extremely easy. It had to be by email, and it had to be free. I have nothing against Submittables, but I had no energy for the extra step, and if my output was limited, I could at least send out previous work. I’ve had a few hits, and a few misses, but over all I’ve gotten a few more things out in the aforementioned Universe, and off the hard drive.

On August 20, I had the pleasure of presenting a work-in-progress at my day gig, in the form of an evening reading/lecture. More on that next week… promise.